


Illuminate

by varooooom



Category: Firefly
Genre: Five And One, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 03:29:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varooooom/pseuds/varooooom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times River wanted to kill Jayne with her brain and one time she didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illuminate

**Author's Note:**

> Eegads! ♥
> 
> All Chinese phrases are a product of Google-fu and are therefore horrendously inaccurate. I don't think hover text works on AO3 so I guess I'll just spell 'em out in the footnotes?

**yī.**

Jayne likes to leave things laying about haphazard-like. Half 'cos he's a lazy _hútú chóng_ ( 1 ) and half 'cos he likes watching Simon trip over them. River never does, sees them before they know they're in the way, but it's surely not for a lack of trying.

Simon's an easy target, though, because he looks people in the eyes when speaks to them and gets lost in them, in his own green because the world hides in them and Simon was always a man of worlds. Before River took them away and hid them in the stars. He belongs in the world and the world always takes him away. Head in the clouds and it makes for easy tripping over feet that can't quite reach the ground.

It's funny the first time, and the crew laughs. Hardy pats on the back and _gēgē_ ( 2 ) takes it good-naturedly, but there's little humour in his laughter and River watches glee stream from Jayne's eyes. Childish pranks and nothing more, but head wounds bleed incessantly even when they're minor. Lots of blood vessels to slice open easy as can be, and Mal ain't laughing muchly when his doc's all tore up.

Jayne, for his part, _tries_ not to, but man's had plenty enough to lose more than a few brain cells and the giggles come anyway. River watches glee in his eyes until they find her staring, and suddenly it isn't half so funny anymore.

**èr.**

Mal doesn't typically like River leaving the ship during jobs, particularly after _Jiangyin_ , but for one who spent two years of her life trapped in white rooms with white masks and voices that whisper without speaking, sometimes the girl needs colours and Captain understands that. Simon says his thank yous and River flinches away from the Sun; Zoë doesn't like it and Kaylee likes to hover without making it obvious she's doing so. Neither around the girl, they're worried about Simon. If Inara were still with them -

But ifs lead to buts and ain't nobody having any of that, so River ducks her head and follows the lizards trailing through the dirt. Little bodies move quickly with superior regenerative abilities to near any other lifeform. She marvels about the fact to a brother that doesn't listen because his eyes stick to hidden places, ones that shouldn't be. She follows his gaze to find the crew talking to shadier and shadier men with every moon they haven't stopped on. Gonna do dirty work, gotta get your hands dirty. They understand this, but it's one thing to get messy of necessity and another thing to enjoy it.

Jayne's more of the latter, and River can feel the thought before he moves to aim his gun. Deal ain't gone sour yet but he's not taking the chance, not after so long without a decent pocket of coin. She knows how he'd do it, what apologies he'd make to Mal and how he'd explain it to Simon when it falls to him to patch folk up. Simple mathematics and probability; he's a predictable man, and these are innocents. Messengers for another, boss that pays 'em less than the dirt on the bottom of Jayne's shoes but they hold the pouch and that makes them valuable.

In his head. In hers, too.

She kicks a rock, just once, and hits one of them in the back of the knee. He buckles onto a bemused Mal, and Simon immediately says his I'm sorrys. River flinches away from the Sun and follow the lizards through the dirt, feeling eyes on the back of her head the entire way.

He's got a fast trigger finger. She's faster. Easier to be crazy than dead. Most days.

**sān.**

He's not a bad man. Bad men don't say their prayers when they think no one but God can hear ( and she wonders, if He can hear all the time, all the way out here, _why_ He would choose to keep listening. doesn't make sense ), or sleep with _māmā_ 's love in his ears.

But he's not a _good_ man neither, and Jayne tells Mal as much for the one-hundred and thirty ninth time since he came onboard. Kaylee's crying again and Zoë left five minutes ago, anger boiling with the kettle left forgotten and tea that'll never be poured. River doesn't understand it, but she wishes she does. Wishes she knew the words that he says and why they make Kaylee cry harder, Mal shout louder and Simon beg for patience.

Words mean nothing to her, though, not a one of them. Vulgar and crude are perceptions that can be falsified, subject to bias and criticism based on an upbringing no one ever had any say in. They're noises in space, waves that carry and shake and rattle the bones in a young woman's frame. River's got thick skin 'cos she's the most fragile person on the ship and she knows it. Nothing scares her the way it should and everything hurts the way it shouldn't.

She wishes she understood but mostly she just doesn't want Kaylee to cry anymore.

"Stop," is all she says. Noises in space that carry and shake and rattle two grown men that've never heard the girl sound like steel in a grinder, like the lock sliding shut in rooms with no windows. There is no room for quarter. There is do or don't, and Jayne looks her in the eyes when he does. Because he always does. Always will.

Always looks away first.

**sì.**

Mornings are rough for _Serenity_. It's one of the reasons River loves her, because mornings are fallacious and she doesn't accept them easily. They are slow and groaning, gears grinding together to put one foot in front of the other. Everyone coming to life, remembering who they are and how they are, the feeling of hard and soft and conscious pull of air through lungs. She can't forget it even when she tries, begs and cries and pleads for a moment to forget, but everyone else does it every single 'morning.' A slow process, and he's always the slowest.

Today's pancakes, in that Simon cooked something vaguely grain based in pan that was caked with stuff. Close as you get off world and nobody's asking questions; it's better for the brain if you don't. Even sleepy tastebuds aren't fooled, but it's fun for the whole family when they _try_. Jayne comes in late as River's reaching for a second _kěyí_ ( 3 ) cake, because today's a good day and she likes the harder games. Playing the fool is easy but fooling the fools is tricky. Doesn't matter to Jayne, though, who sees pancakes on a plate and immediately dives in for it. His hand gets there second, on top of hers, and she glares at him until he slowly, hesitantly, pulls away sucking his teeth.

Small victories still count. There are more on the stove.

**wū.**

He steps on the dinosaur Wash gave her.

It's a near miss. Very, very near.

**_yī._ **

He finds her crying, curled into a ball too tightly to be considered humanly possible ( which might only reaffirm his belief that she ain't human ) in the farthest corner of the cargo bay away from the rest of the ship. The metal is cold and bites into bare toes and a hunched back that rocks to and fro, shaking in the wind, back and forth as she sobs.

She hears him coming before his foot hits the ground, boots loud on metal and his voice is louder.

"The Hell're you doing down there?" His voice is always so rough, angry like the puppy that's just trying to show its teeth. River curls further into herself. "You know damn well crazy's not supposed to be down here."

"She's not _crazy_ ," and the words sound false even from her own tongue. Tongue that speaks words that aren't truths, not until the words are spoken and they weren't meant to be, weren't hers to speak. She sobs again, pulls her hair tighter between her hands.

Hands that are red-raw, bright and painful to match the rest of her arms and her legs too. Jayne sucks his teeth when he notices; she chokes on an inhale.

"Aw, Hell." He kneels down next to her ( shotgun in his left, pistol at his right, waiting. waiting for the day he'll need them ) and tries to get a closer look, frown in his voice. "What'd you go an' do t'yourself this time?"

He wants to know. Not just asking and it's weird and she doesn't like it. Doesn't like the questions that don't have answers.

"There were," she tries, shakes her head and keeps rocking. Back and forth, hush now, _xiǎo yī_ ( 4 ). "They put needles in my eyes. In my hands and my feet, and," she unfurls to hold her hands in front of her, to stare down at the blood beneath her nails. Isn't bleeding anymore. Was. Won't. "I tried to get them out, tried and tried but I _can't_. They're in me and they stay and I can't ... _sleep_ where it's loud."

The rest of the ship, louder and louder. _Serenity_ 's engine sings and the thrusters holler and shout but they're all quieter than the rooms. Rooms with people and memories and _noise_ \- it's all too much.

Jayne stares and she feels it like blades of grass that tickle under feet and slice fingers open. Red and green; she turns to him with tired, burning eyes.

"Don't tell Simon. Body needs sleep and he thinks it'll help me but rest isn't resting. Don't tell."

"All right, all right. Quit yer ramblin', I get it." he groans, setting his gun down ( opposite side, away away ) and sitting beside her, back braced against the crate her toes are curled beneath. Doesn't fit, puzzle pieces too big, and it makes River wish she remembered how to smile. "I won't tell your _téngtòng de pìgu_ ( 5 ) brother nothin'. Prolly think I'd done something anyhow."

She slides her feet forward along the metal grating, uncurling just enough to rest her head on her knees as she looks at him. They don't touch, not anywhere, but she can feel his presence bright and warm all over. People hug and hold and tug her along, but not many get close like this.

"You always do something. You're a ... _doer_."

"Doin's what I do best," he grins that smarmy grin from when he lies and he cheats, because he's an honest man and he doesn't know any better. She closes her eyes to imagine it. "Oi, don't you go fallin' asleep down here, moonbrain."

"Talks too loud," she retorts, careful deadpan because she's an honest girl. Doesn't know any better. She hears his head thunk back against the crates.

" _Tián réncí de shàngdì, gěi wǒ nàixīn_ ( 6 ), if I were a praying man." He _is_ , in the quiet, and the quiet surrounds them hidden away in the far corner of existence at the edge of the Black.

She sleeps. He stays.

**Author's Note:**

> ( 1 ) slob  
> ( 2 ) big brother  
> ( 3 ) dubious  
> ( 4 ) little one  
> ( 5 ) pain in the ass  
> ( 6 ) sweet merciful God, give me patience


End file.
